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Meet Some of Our MembersHere is a list of some of our members who have chosen to make their profiles public. 2016 Jan - Jul Meetings
The Great Debate Meeting 29th June 2016Fifty brave souls braved the cold Melbourne weather to celebrate a Carlton/Parkville joint meeting with our special guests, the HKU Space Toastmasters. Phil was on the door and Paul our Sgt at Arms. It was fitting that the theme of the meeting was friendship. Gillon and Sarah, our outgoing Presidents, gave their secret handshake and welcomed us all to a special meeting. Celeste gave us the word of the day, Camaraderie, and Cleo as Toastmaster took us through a round robin to discover what friendship means to us all. First to speak was Michael(L) with his speech ‘Amorphous’ CC#4 How to Say It. Michael drew on the Brexit events in Europe to show Friendships made in Prosperity are tested in Adversity. Next was Sarah with her speech to be described after the August convention. These speeches were evaluated with praise and improvements by Darrell and Mary (HKU). And then came the great Debate: The Gardeners Party (Parkville) represented by Andrea, Rhys and Simon. The Fitness Party (HKU Space) represented by Kenny, Cindy and Catherine. The Space Party (Carlton) represented by Selina, Vivian and Michael(C). A wonderful debate and an extremely close vote, saw The Space Party win on a tie breaker vote (though the rumour is they did a preference deal with The Garden Party). Well done to all teams. We are sure debates will feature in future joint meetings, so Parkville can win back the debating cup! Great meeting reports from Celeste, Craig, Percy and Devika. Darrell reminded us all about the Shing-dig-athon… 13 August… book now, for this marathon 42 speech event! Gillon and Sarah, our new past Presidents, gave their secret handshake for the last time and also their last President’s poem together, to close this very special meeting. Carlton Tram Meeting - 26 June 2016A cold Sunday afternoon and it was toasty warm on the tram. Carlton celebrated its first travelling toastmasters meeting by taking a tram ride down to Acland Street St Kilda. Not just any tram mind you, we caught one of the Colonial Tram Car Restaurant trams. This meant we would have beautiful food and wine with speeches and table topics. We were introduced to our hosts from Colonial Tram Car Restaurant Chef Avi, and waitresses Emina and Dot. Michael stood up as Toastmaster (in traming) and also gave us the safety brief. For the Presidential opening Michael passed to Sarah, who passed on to Incoming President Phil. We were also welcomed with some bubbly liquid that tasted like champagnee water... and it exploded like dynamite up my nose... and it also made me warmer inside. As we settled in, and before we had our entree, Travis, Sarah, Paul and Bron gave us resounding responses to Natalie's topical table topics. Now warmed, we all got up to talk about our favourite food that we have when travelling by our favourite type of transport. As if on cue, our meals were served. As they came out, we still had time to hear Andrea, Darrell and Cleo respond to Natalie's great table topics. A quick announcement from Anthony about an upcoming Marathon Speech-a-thon. On Patrick Shing’s Birthday, 13th August, there will be a five meeting 42 speech extravaganza. Watch for more details. Andrea gave us 'Bruce and the Wombat' from Interpretive Reading #4 the Play. This modern (1980) Dot Freeman passage, inspired from 'Albert and the Lion' told us the perils of firing your slingshot at a child eating wombat. Phil told us two tales from the 'Connies'. The first tale, which Phil claims is absolutely true, prompted the question, 'why did the chicken catch the tram?'. The second tale, which Phil also claims is true, revealed the successful use of public transport in the training of greyhounds! Time, unlike the tram, flew by. We were on to our cheese and coffee before we knew it! Thanks to Sarah, Vivian and the other unnamed people for their efforts in getting this wonderful meeting organised. I highly recommend that we do this again! Decisions at Carlton 15th June 2016Vivian’s warm smile welcomed us on a cold dark night at Carlton. Paul got us seated and we were welcomed to another Carlton meeting by the effervescent Rebecca, standing in as President. Taking a break from her many E17 director duties' and making a decisive decision, Natalie stood up as Toastmaster for a meeting theme of 'Decisions, Decisions'. Christine as Grammarian then resolved to give us 'resolution' for word of the day. Our warm up was all about our decisions. A lot of decisions were discussed and made, but very few resolutions. Katrina was our first speaker with her 'The Problem with Work Life Balance' CC#2 – Organise Your Speech. Katrina was looking for a life beyond the job, but fears that it may not exist. Kern then stepped up with his 'How to Break a Habit Forever' CC#3 – Get to the Point. Kern broke one habit in driving foreign cars, but struggled with chocolate. His action cycle to identify the (1) triggers, (2) actions, and (3) responses lay a ground work for breaking these habits Bibi presented her 'In Your Blind Spot' Speaking To Inform #5 – The Abstract Concept. Bibi took on the task of exploring our conscious and unconscious bias. We all have a blind spot and it is shaped exactly like us.(see Harvard's Implicit Association Tests: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/australia/ ) Arash gave us 'Fast and the Furious' The Entertaining Speaker #1 the Entertaining Speech. At 100kmh or faster, Arash told us about a jilted young lad’s mad dash through red lights across Melbourne, from Clayton to Carlton. Brilliant Evaluations as usual from Charles (Fitzroy& Heidelberg Health), Maddie, Selina and Jez. Phil gave us choices for table topics with Paul answering the question: Which would you do without, Elbows or Knees? Carly pondering: Where would you go in your time machine, Future or Past? Christiano deciding: To be a dragon, or to have dragon inside you? Michael modelling: What would you wear A snow suit in the desert, or nothing in the Arctic… Vivian evaluated the answers with great insight and good improvements. Christine then gave our grammarian report, Darrell our Ah count and Michael explained why it is important to keep on time! Jon was our general Evaluator. Announcements were then made by our acting President, Rebecca followed by President elect Phil. Last Call for Submissions for the Argonaut. We need your stories, educationals and pearls of wisdom. Please forward you contributions ASAP to clancmic@gmail.com or Michael.Clancy@aemo.com.au Election Night at Carlton 1st June 2016It was a cold 1st of June and Michael stood at the door warmly welcoming all to Carlton’s first winter meeting for the year. Darrell stood in as Sergeant at Arms for Paul, who was called away for parenting duties. With much fanfare and applause, Sarah, our President, and 2016 District 73 International Speech Champion, opened the meeting acknowledging the huge success and presence of Carlton members at the District 73 Annual Convention in Adelaide: Cleo and Darrell as outstanding Contest Chairs, Ha as our hilarious District 73 Humorous Speech Champion, Christine with her elevation to District Program Quality Director, Vivian as a ‘Carlton quality’ Evaluation contest test speaker, and all the Carlton members who made up the Carlton cheer squad and helped with contest and convention roles. Darrell took the floor to acknowledge Sarah’s own outstanding success. The theme of the meeting was Club Elections. Our grammarian, Phil, gave us ‘systemic’ as word of the day, inspired by US political word usage in general and Hilary Clinton in particular. Maddie, our first time Toastmaster, steered us onto the right course for a Club Election meeting with an excellent round robin on leadership and what it means to all of us. Then it was down to Speeches. Christine gave ‘Sagarmatha’ as her CC#10, Inspire your audience. In this inspirational speech, Christine shared the insight that trekking is hard work! The goddess of the sky will always make giving up the easier path, but with her hunky hero, the good Karma, Christine has an attitude that can conquer altitude. Darrell gave us a Public Relations #5 – The Crisis Management Speech with ‘Loss’. Darrell lamented the loss of a million dollars from the Carlton Toastmasters Club account to a little known Collingwood supporter, a man with many aliases, now holidaying in Uruguay. Darrell then answered questions from the members of press present. He did try to avoid questions from two reporters who wanted to ask about his upcoming trip to a country that does NOT have an extradition treaty with Australia. Cleo finished her Interpretive Reading, #5 The Play, with ‘Good Will Hunting’. Whether she was speaking as Matt Damon (Will Hunting), Robin Williams (Sean Maguire) or Stellan Skarsgard (Prof. Gerald Lambeau), Cleo was entertaining and moving. We all felt the passion and conflict that Cleo portrayed. After the break (with some yummy food from Sarah), we had insightful and helpful evaluations from Arash, Michael C and Rob. Then we had the important club elections. Congratulations to the following members who were elected to take Carlton forward from July 1st: With elections complete, we had our meeting reports from Grammarian Phil, Ah Counter Bibi, Timer Selina and a General Evaluation from Andrea. Before closing, Christine was awarded her CC pin; Cleo and Darrell their ACG pins. Don’t forget to register for 'It's A Winning Speech' workshop at South Melbourne 2016 District 73 Toastmasters Convention Carlton Wrap Up.The convention started on Friday and by the time our flights departed Adelaide on Sunday, Carlton could hold its head with pride. Carlton ROCKED in so many ways. Let’s recount the weekend and count the ways Carlton rocked… Robert McIlroy started it off with his third placing “A House, A Spouse and A Mouse”, followed by Sharon Noske’s second placing “The truth behind the counter”. 2/ Fourth to speak was Carlton’s Ha Du. Despite being almost declared dead from the flu during the week, Ha, in an extremely attractive short dark dress, delivered her ‘Ha-Ha-Ha Ha, Ha-Ha-Ha Ha’ as if she owned the stage. With her timing, pauses, punches and punch lines delivered with the facial emotions and vocal variety of a professional Speaker, Stand Up Comedian, Kung Fu Fighter, Assassin [Use where appropriate], Ha entertained and gave us the winning speech. What a start to 3/ Darrell Pitt was the most debonair International Contest Chair on Saturday! His cool calm exterior did not betray his excitement or any hint of anticipation for what was to be a very close contest. Brendan Farrell placed third with his “One Moment”, and Krishna Kumar placed second “It’s Time to Fly” 4/ Carlton President Sarah Hanieh with “Make Every Beat Count” had us spell bound. We may be just bags of blood, but we are durable because the energy in the room exploded when Sarah was announced the winner. The smile on every Carlton member’s face beamed as Sarah was awarded her prize by International Toastmaster President, Jim Kokocki. 5/ While Carlton did not have anyone competing in the Angela Guidera chaired Table Topics contest, where Trish Brown came third, Andrew Weatherhead came second and Catherine 6/ The Gala Dinner saw Darrell and Anthony both awarded Triple Crown awards (3 or more awards in a single year) presented by International Toastmaster President, Jim Kokocki. The Gala Dinner also saw Carlton celebrate as wild animals. But in this case it was nothing to be embarrassed about as the theme of the dinner was ‘Call of the Wild’ (though some say Michael just looked like a wild Adelaide supporter). 7/ Carlton’s legacy from Patrick Shing is the belief that evaluations are one of the most important building blocks of successful public speaking. And while we did not have a contestant in this Travis The conference came to a close after the Toastmaster choir sang in almost 4 part harmony that well known classic, the “lion sleeps tonight” Some announcements at the end… District Officer of the Year: Emmi Godau The Toastmaster District 73 committee for 2016-17 was introduced… Including… 8/ Carlton’s Christine Dimitros, is the incoming Program Quality Director. 9/ Winner of the convention first timers award, Carlton's Phil Harkin. 10/ And the last thing to be done was to hand over the District 73 Convention Gavel to the 2017 Convention committee to be hosted by Carlton and Fitzroy. Cleo accepted the gavel and entertained the crowd with an epic 5 minute film. Shot on location, staring Anthony, Sarah, Darrell, Christine, and Cleo. Written and Directed by Darrell. As host of the 2017 Convention, 11/ The following Carlton people were seen at the 2016 D73 Convention! Sarah, Rebecca, Ha, Michael, Vivian, Bibi, Anthony, Darrell, Natalie, Cleo, Andrea, Christine, Phil, Marcus (and Natalie’s partner Glenn who is included because I stole his coat…) Next year’s convention we would love to see all members attend. Are you up to the challenge Carlton! HEROES 18th of May MeetingIt was the 18th of May and just 2 days before the District 73 Convention and Carlton was celebrating its heroes. Rob Hughes stood in as Sergeant at Arms and called us to order. Sarah welcomed us all to another extraordinary Carlton meeting with Anthony proving that he is the Toastmasters’ Toastmaster. Filipina was our first speaker with ‘Cottonopolis’, her CC#3 ‘Get to the Point’. As Filipina shopped with John from Manchester, we discovered further delights of Manchester. Not the sheets department, but the English city famous for its cotton production back in the industrial revolution (it may also have a football team or two…) Arash was our next speaker with ‘Live or Leave’, for his CC#3 ‘Get to the Point’. Arash explored the choices we make, discussing the choice of staying and fighting or running away. He noted that Passion and Love can bring encouragement to our choices. Phil delivered ‘Slowing Down’ CC#6 Vocal Variety, where he discussed the difference slowing down the rain water runoff can benefit our drought ravaged country. With his vivid storytelling and beautiful word pictures we learnt about and were inspired by the natural force of water. Maddie talked about ‘Loneliness – The most terrible Poverty’ CC#7 Research Your Topic. An engaging and fact driven speech about loneliness and isolation and the distinctions between them. Thankfully Maddie has reassured us all that loneliness is NOT the Toastmaster experience. We then had a break to enjoy the delightful supper supplied by Michael. Rob reconvened the meeting. Evaluations were given by Cleo, Katrina, Michael and Kern. Carlton prides itself on the quality of its evaluations and Katrina and Kern demonstrated this quality in their very first evaluations. Congratulations to both Katrina and Kern! Cleo and Michael did well too! Darrel was the Ah counter and Bibi did the timers report with Jon as the General Evaluator. It was then a privilege for us to hear two pre convention practices for competition speeches. First up was the warm tones of Bharat as he warned us of the “Delight of a flight with an inflight Maximiser.” This speech is up against Carlton’s very own Ha who is also competing for the Humorous Speech. The best we can do is hope Bharat comes second. It is the only fair thing to do! Then we had that beautiful bag of blood for the international speech. Sarah gave us the highs and lows of emotion in a powerful speech. The imagery and message will be hard to beat. And for Sarah, every beat counts. Good luck, we are all hoping the best for you. (NOTE: this is written post-Convention, and I know the results… Stay tuned for the results in a separate notice!) Autobiography of Carlton's May 4th MeetingIt is now May and the sky was dark as our door monitor Darrell warmly welcomed all to another fun packed Carlton Toastmasters meeting. Paul was going to start us on time but our president, Sarah, had been delayed. And, following a printer glitch, no guessing who had the Agendas... Up stepped our "VPE of the Year" Rebecca to save the day! There were no hidden agendas as it was written on a white board for all to see. Selina was our charming toastmaster for the night, though many thought she was from the Ministry of Silly Walks with her 'moving' display of walking styles, with Darrell assisting her as catwalk model? With a theme of Autobiography, Grammarian Filipina gave us the word 'Revel' for we had revelled in revealing the first chapters of our upcoming autobiographies. First up was Kern with his CC#2(Organise Your Speech) 'Do opinions matter?' From being lost in Italy to adventure parks, it's just an opinion that tells us who and what we are and do. For opinions are thoughts not facts. Also doing CC#2 (Organise Your Speech) was Jez with 'Are Machines Taking Over?' With a quote from Moondog, 'Machines were mice once upon a time..', Jez discussed the utopia and dystopia of a world where machines make decisions faster than the speed of thought. Darrell mastered Public Relations #4(Speaking Under Fire), despite some fiery questioning from the audience. His news conference, "Waste Not, Want Not" had us almost believing that Australia was embarking on a new global adventure in nuclear waste management... Rebecca's supper was delicious (I had two slices of quiche! Bibi refuses to divulge how many pieces of quiche and slice she ate.) Delivering 'A little bit about me!' CC#1 (The Ice Breaker), Katrina took us on a journey from her Irish Catholic upbringing in central Victoria where she was a free range kid, to her Masters in Counselling Psychology. Calm, composed and confident: well done Katrina, we look forward to your next wonderful speech. Anthony's 'Life is like a Boomerang' CC#8 (Get Comfortable with Visual Aids) told us all that with life, what you give, will return to you. Despite having written his own eulogy, we know that we will not have to wait for it to be read, to know that Anthony's passion is to help others to achieve their dreams. Outstanding evaluations were given by Michael L, Michael C, Phil, Bibi and Celeste. Our Grammarian was Filipina, Vivian our Ah Counter and Paul our Timer. We finished with a General Evaluation from Arash, who shared fresh perspectives from his involvement in Toastmasters in Malaysia. Despite arriving late, the meeting was closed by President Sarah. Club Elections are coming up: Considering a role? Your ideas and involvement will help Carlton be the vibrant and exciting club that we all enjoy! You can view the presentation on the exec role descriptions here: Club Roles Get in quick for the tram meeting with a few spots remaining. 26th June 16 at 1:00pm for only $85 per person for a three course meal and lots of fun! Contact Vivian or Sarah for details. Only 2 weeks until the D73 Annual District Convention in Adelaide on 20th - 22nd May! Carlton will have a huge presence with our President, Sarah, competing in International and our Vice President Membership, Ha, competing in Humorous. Ticket sales close 4pm on 12th May: http://d73.toastmasters.org.au/2016-convention/ $100 club subsidy for the first ten members registering (contact Sarah for details). Also available, ‘Oxygen Only free attendance options’: http://www.toastmastersa.org/d73-convention-oxygen-only.html
Gangsta night at Carlton 20th April 2016It was a “gangsta” night at Carlton with people showing their colours in a fun packed meeting. Paul, our faithful SAA got our meeting of to a wonderful start, and Sarah, our President, welcomed guests from Fitzroy, Nillumbik and Monash Toastmasters. Also in our big audience was Sarah’s lovely mother, who travelled from Adelaide to be with us on her birthday. (Happy Birthday Carmen!) Our toastmaster for the night, the versatile Vivian, chose the ‘Gangsta” theme in memory of her recently stolen car. Our first speaker was Celeste. In her CC#2: Organise Your Speech, Celeste told us with absolute clarity that “We Would Fail”. Celeste was convincing right up until the end when she added one simple word… “Unless”! One simple word that gave us all so much hope! Our next speaker was Michael(L). His CC#2: Organise Your Speech, “It’s OK to be normal”. Michael told us that we don’t need ambition, or have to strive to be perfect, that being Normal is all we need. That, while we do remember and learn from Icarus’ failings, we often fail to appreciate and celebrate Daedalus’ success. Congratulations to both Celeste and Michael(L) for these wonderful speeches, especially as you both only gave your icebreakers at Parkville last week! Wow these guys are good! Our third speaker also doing his CC#2: Organise Your Speech, was Arash. Arash posed the question “Do we make decisions, or do our decisions make us” in his thought provoking speech. A beautifully crafted speech, showing the tremendous talent that is present at Carlton! Charles (Fitzroy), Natalie and Andrea gave beautiful and insightful evaluations before the break. The break was finished as the Usherette from Michael(C)’s play sat us all down for a bit of fun as he presented Interpretive Reading #4 the Play. And the Usherette was just the first of 7 unique characters Michael portrayed in his one man play “Rocky Horror Picture Show”. Cleo followed the Time Warp with a report on her bid, on behalf of Carlton and Fitzroy TM clubs, to host the 2017 Convention. Congratulations to our hero, Cleo, on a successful bid as part of her High Performance Leadership task. There will be more on this later in the year. Watch This Darrell and Jez (his first evaluation) gave us evaluations for the after break speeches, Murphy gave her (another first) AH count, Bibi, gave a report as the Mistress of Time, and Selina finishe our evaluations with a refreshing and constructive General Evaluation. Thanks also to all those who attended for making this a wonderful meeting! Before Sarah closed the meeting, there were some announcements. Congratulations to Michael(C) on achieving two milestones this week, his ACB and ALB! Next Carlton meeting is on Star Wars Day (May the 4th be with you!) Carlton Deadpan Meeting April 6th 2016Another exciting Carlton Meeting was held on Wednesday Night. With Michael(C)’s rapid decline from the Presidency last week, to the Sergeant At Arms this week, he still managed to get us started on time! Sarah was back to her proper position as President, with Rebecca as her second in command and Ha as third in command, sending a clear signal that last week’s Coup had failed. Our VPM, Ha stood up to Vote in THREE new members. Celeste, Katrina and Michael(L) are now part of our wonderful Carlton Family! Ha was our ‘Deadpan’ Toastmaster. Cleo gave us a BLANK as word of the day. And thus, Carlton was back to doing what it does best, having fun! And what fun we had! It started with Ha’s deadpan warmup. Despite all the BLANK looks most of the answers took to the deadpan question with great humour and insight. First speaker was Carly with “The Boots Made from Crocodile Leather” (Storytelling#1 – The Folk Tale). Carly told us the story of Ex-Army Solider Trousers and how he saved Shiny Black Boots, the Australian Cricket Captain, from a dozen Bushrangers (No relation to the Victorian Cricket Team). Second Speaker said her name was Selina (she may have been lying), with a speech “Lies and Why” (The Entertaining Speaker#2 Resources for Entertainment). In this speech, Lies were discussed and there may have been one or twenty untruths, because the truth can be hurtful. Bibi, as third speaker, presented “Lessons from the Tour part 2: Micro Finance” (Speaking to Inform #2 Resources for Informing). In the presentation speech Bibi was able to persuade us that not all banks are full of “Greedy Fat Cat Bankers”, as she explained microfinance and its benefits to empowering the disadvantaged and excluded members of our communities. Finally we had Cleo’s “Find Your Inner Hero” (Speaking to Inform #2 The Speech to Inform). In this speech Cleo told us of her upcoming quest to find her Inner Hero for 2017. Her Quest will involve Fitzroy and Carlton Toastmasters Clubs coming together for a big event. Stay tuned for more! WOW. Four powerful, funny and entertaining speeches. We rested while eating the food that Maddie had kindly supplied for supper! But soon Michael, now demoted as low as Corporal Punishment, reconvened the meeting. Maddie provide us with some insightful table topics. With Praise, Improvements and Praise was our speech evaluators Phil, Darrell, Rob, and Filipina with Andrea doing Table Topics. Sarah closed the meeting after congratulating Bibi on achieving her Advanced Leader Bronze. WOW! What a wonderful meeting. Thanks to all our speakers and those with meeting roles for a BLANK meeting. (Choose your own word!) Hawaiian Joint Meeting With Parkville 30th March 2016A tropical delight was the Carlton and Parkville joint meeting on Wednesday night. Parkville’s president Gillon, in his fine Hawaiian shirt, and Not Sarah, Rebecca or Ha but Michael representing Carlton. The two presidents welcomed all the Parkville members, Carlton members and the large contingent of Fitzroy members. Les was our Toastmaster on a night with a Hawaiian theme and a Fantastic word of the Day, provided by grammarian Craig. Educational was the order of the day with 4 Educational speeches delivered superbly. First up was Jo on ‘Finding new members for your club’ Jo presented a Number of excellent ideas for retaining and acquiring members in a fun and entertaining manner, despite the late notice to do so. Next up was Andrea With ‘Kill your darlings’. This public transport inspired educational told us how to gather our inspiration for our speech topics, but also to be prepared to shelve those ideas that prevent our topics from blossoming. Bibi not only told us the benefit of ‘Goal Setting and Planning’, she invoked a gold medal winning understanding of how Alisa Camplin used ‘Goal Setting and Planning’ to become an Olympic champion. Finally, while demonstrating the Do’s and Don’ts of body language, was Christine’s ‘My Body Speaks’. Using a scarf and badge to scratch the back of your neck is a defiant skill that should only be used in humorous speeches. After the break was Selina with her table topics. Table topics were excellently evaluated by Tara and Michael. Carly gave us our Timings, Crag our Grammar, and finally Cleo giving the General Evaluation Michaels coup will be short lived. Speech-a-thon Meeting, March 16th 2016Twenty enthusiastic Carlton Toastmasters and four guests came together last week to celebrate the debut speeches of three new members and four established members in a dynamic Carlton speechathon, with Rebecca as our engaging and entertaining toastmaster for the night. Our first speaker was Jez who kept us all enthralled with his brilliant ice-breaker speech that had everything- music, singing, and even a glimpse of a long-haired Jez from yesteryear! Thank you Jez for sharing your story and giving us a wonderful insight into your life. Next up was Kern who moved us all with his very personal and inspiring account of the reasons behind why he joined Toastmasters. A story of inspiration, courage and determination that had us all on our feet cheering for him. We then heard from Arash who entertained us with a humorous and engaging window into the life of ATK- now we all know who he is and we can’t wait to hear more from him. Next up was Leigh who gave us a brilliant delivery of the short story ‘Falling’ as part of the interpretive reading manual. Thank you Leigh for showing what can be done with a simple story and a clear and captivating voice. We then heard Ha bravely deliver an impromptu style speech and show us what can be achieved when you step outside of your comfort zone. Maddie who never fails to impress, was next with his unique and interesting speeches and continued rapid growth as a speaker. Our final speaker was Rob who scared and enthralled us with his crisis management speech, and even fielded questions from a very rowdy media audience. I know who I want on my side in a crisis! All the speeches were cleverly evaluated by Cleo, Darrell, Jon, Paul, Selina, Anthony and Sarah. The effervescent Andrea gave us her entertaining grammarians report, Rosie kept us on track with her comprehensive timers report, and Filipina gave a wonderful general overview of the meeting with the general evaluators report. The meeting was closed with a rousing renditi on of Happy Birthday to mark Carlton’s third birthday, led by the beautiful voices of the Carlton Toastmasters Choir- Andrea and Cleo. The next meeting on the 30th March will be a joint meeting with our sister club Parkville. The meeting will be an educational evening – Hawaiian style!! Four educationals will be delivered by speakers from both clubs. If you feel like it- come in Hawaiian styled clothing, and there will be prizes for the best dressed. Shake it Up and Spick-and-Span Meeting 2 Mar 2016A smiling Selina was on the door to welcome guests and members to another wonderful Carlton Toastmasters. Our Sargent at Arms Paul bought us to order and passed to President Sarah to open the meeting with the theme Shake it Up. Our Vice President of Membership, Ha, made it on stage to welcome two new members to our large Carlton Toastmasters family with both Jes and Arash voted in. Leigh stood up as Toastmaster and with a little persuasion invited the Vivian as grammarian to the stage. It was all Spick and Span, so Spick-and-Span was the word of the day. Cleo told us all about her "Life with Darrell" a Humorously Speaking#5-The Humorous Speech. Cleo told us of how Darrell has taken her to the Stars, both the Trek and War, Movies, along with various Evil Dead Zombie Vampire Killer Thriller and Suspense movies. Cleo did let it slip that she still prefers movies with red dresses and roses rather than the red planet or red blood. Then in an impromptu Better Speaker Series #4-Impromptu Speaking by the effervescent Rebecca, we had an impromptu educational on impromptu speaking. As nothing was planned, it went according to the plan. Rebecca was very entertaining and gave some Wonderful impromptu tips. Congratulations on a job well done! Table topics with Rosie was a bag full of tricks. With that we made it to the Break and lots of food supplied by Phil. Anthony gave us "Turn it upside down" a CC#7-Research Your Topic Speech that was well researched told us how having triplet sisters that are identical, and yet so very different, help him see the world in a different light, even when Shaken Up and Turned upside down. Phil, Keir and Selina where our fabulous evaluators for the night. Giving Praise, Insights and Wisdom. Andrea was timing and almost kept Keir to time. Almost… Our General Evaluator was Rob, back after being elsewhere for far too long! (Good to have you back Rob!) Metro Division speech contest results, as watched over by Patrick Shing: 21st Feb 2016Our guardian angel, Patrick Shing, guided Carlton and Parkville to success at the Metro Division speech contest finals today in South Melbourne. Carlton and Parkville did him proud, between them winning all four contests! Carlton’s own Darrell Pit was the Competition Chair of the Table Topics contest. Congratulations to Keir Wells Parkville) for winning the Patrick Shing perpetual trophy. Keir followed up with a second win in the Evaluation competition. Congratulations to Keir, again! The big prize is the International Speech; with Rebecca Arnold chairing the competition, it proved to be a contest of a very high standard. Much to the delight of the LARGE Carlton Crowd it was won by Sarah Hanieh. Congratulations to Sarah! Cleo Pitt got us laughing as Contest Chair for the Humorous Competition. That was won in a tight contest, with Ha Du (Carlton) victorious. Congratulations to Ha! The Carlton crowd had tears of joy in their eyes! Double Happiness!! Congratulations to all of Carlton and Parkville’s outstanding contest participants and many thanks to the large crew from both clubs who helped to organise and run the competition as well as cheer on their club competitors. To Recap: Keir, Sarah and Ha will now compete in the District Finals in Adelaide in May. Good Luck to all, you each did Patrick proud, and we all look forward to the District73 finals. Carltons Courage Continues - Meeting 17th February 2016Michael was on the door, to welcome all who had trouble parking with the events going on at Icon Park. Paul called all to order so that Sarah could welcome our guests to our meeting at Carlton Toastmasters on Wednesday with Anthony our esteemed Toastmaster. Courage was our theme and our Grammarian Natalie courageously gave us courageous as our word of the day. With this in mind Anthony asked us what fears have we overcome. Then it was to the speeches. First up showing courage was Filipina with "All I want for Christmas" her CC#2-Organise your Speech. With ukulele in hand Filipina took us on her courageous journey through her new year’s resolutions, none of which had her falling off her bike and losing her teeth. Phil gave us a travelogue of places that he had the pleasure of visiting over Christmas. “Everything Speaks” was his CC#5-Your Body Speaks in which he fully conversed his way through free meals with “Sake” in Japan without a word of Japanese, but found a bag full of Olives expensive in Austria. “Question Mark” was the title of an Entertaining Speaker#5 – Speaking after dinner, in which Vivian went round the room singing the praises of all the members present and how they have influenced her. Speaking off the cuff, this impromptu speech was warm and entertaining. The Cleo stood up and to the delight of all, told a Humorously Speaking #4 – Keep them laughing speech on the Bra. Simply titled “The Bra”, the speech had many ups, with as many lifts and separations as the undergarment that she was talking about. With the prepared speeches finished, Rebecca stood up as Hark Master and to ensure that we were all listening quizzed us on the speeches. Paul gave us a joke as the evenings Joke Master which saw us to the break in a jovial mood. After the break, Selina, Michael, Rosie and Sarah gave the insightful evaluations. Then Christine presented Table Topics to Andrea, Gerald (visitor), and Lucas (visitor). These were evaluated by Clay and Leigh. Natalie gave the Grammarians report, Darrell the Ah count, Carly the Timing Report and Maddie the General Evaluation, before Anthony handed back to Sarah to close the meeting. Don’t forget we have a wealth of Carlton talent competing this weekend. Come along to show our support for Ha in the Humorous, Michael in the Evaluation, Andrea in the Table Topics and Sarah in the International contests at the South Melbourne Community Centre, 1 Ferrars Place, South Melbourne, from 10am till around 4pm. For the New Beginnings of a year just begun - Meeting 3rd February 2016New Beginnings was the theme of this week’s fantastic meeting. With Darrell on the door to welcome all, new dad, our Sergeant at Arms, Paul called the meeting to order. President Sarah welcomed all to the second meeting of the year. Our rudimentary word of the day (just begun and so not fully formed or developed ) was "inchoate". With proud Paul our Toastmaster, we shared our new beginnings for 2016. Then it was the much anticipated speeches. First up, after being a member since November, then waiting for the Christmas festivities and New Year revelries to pass, we finally got to hear "Fom the Beginning", an icebreaker from Clay. It was worth the wait, for this CC#1 had humour and drama. Clay took us on a journey from ferrets and failed businesses to fish & chips then fire-fighting on one of the worst days in fire-fighting memory. Well done Clay, we look forward to your next speech soon! After returning from the arctic circle, our sporting hero Rebecca gave us a Touching Story (Storytelling #4) with "Just say Yes". Pursuing Extreme Sports and setting a blinding pace on the dog sled team, enabled Rebecca to see the Northern Lights with a little help from Yes the Huskie. Hope the injury heals soon! To break up the evening we had the first two table topics with Andrea providing a lucky dip for the new Zodiac. Jezz pushed for the addition of a new mythical creature, while Leigh argued for an elephant to be added. Christine gave us a Moral of the Story (Storytelling #3) with "The Small Inanimate Object" about the perils of failing to notice security devices on your clothes. As it turned out, it does come out in Michael took us back to the 60's and his childhood, with his "to Walk on The Moon" for Bringing History to Life (Storytelling #5). The dramas of the moon mission and the fulfilment of a dream combined to show what is capable when you set your goals high. Two more table topics asked by Andrea saw Vivian add the Owl to the Zodiac, but only if it replaced the Pig, while Phil argued against the inclusion of Cats. After such a marathon of speeches we took a short break to enjoy the super provided by Cleo. Paul got us reconvened as we still had more speeches to do! Sarah gave us "Every Beat" as part of Uplift The Spirit (Specialty Speeches #2). It was a moving and thought provoking speech that had us all hoping the tall strapping single Rob would one day come out and say the right four words... Five superb speeches and Four clever table topics were expertly evaluated by Bibi, Darrell, Anthony, Cleo, Rosie and Leigh. Finally Selina reported on our grammar, Phil measured our time and Vivian gave an outstanding General Evaluation. Sarah then closed the meeting. Congratulations to Jezz, not even a member (yet!) and already he has done an evaluation and a table topic. Get that membership form in soon! A Wheel of Good Fortune - Impromptu Meeting 20 January 2016Laughter exploded at Carlton’s cracker of an Impromptu meeting as President Sarah asked everyone to spin the wheel to decide their meeting role. How on earth would this meeting turn out? Lucky our guest Jezz was game for anything – his wheel spin stopped on an evaluator role. Once roles were allocated, our newly appointed Toastmaster, Cleo, declared the theme of the meeting was Laughter and the fun began. The robin flew once round the room to discover what makes us laugh until we cry: visiting Toastmaster Preeti’s day begins with laughter at her daughter’s imaginative descriptions, while Andrea’s Australian accent amuses English children, and laughing at Natalie can bring her partner Glenn and his brother to tears. Our Grammarian, Leigh, decided the word of the day was Speculate, putting a word to what everyone was surely thinking. Could a prepared speech be delivered impromptu? We were about to find out. Selina practised the new ‘English’ accent she acquired through her boyfriend’s gift of speech therapy, during her Entertaining speech ‘Be like a Comedian; act like a normal person’. Natalie took us on ‘A Day in the Life of a Nat’, describing how a sales superstar cold calls real estate agents, shrugs off indifference and celebrates her wins. Anthony called on us all to ‘Light a Fire’ after he explained how supporting front line fire fighters, during Black Saturday, lit a metaphorical fire that took his career in new directions. Michael ‘awarded’ the club with the semi-annual Carlton Argonaut; thanking all newsletter contributors for their stories and photos of our club’s late founder, Patrick Shing, who provided inspiration for the inaugural Summer issue. During the supper break, cheese was enjoyed with crackers and milk in our tea and coffee, thanks to Andrea’s partner, Peter, for his impromptu shopping expedition! Bibi’s table topics provided more opportunities for speculation: Christine on what type of mistress she would make - a Toastmistress, of course; Andrea on how Trump might preside over a rise in floppy comb overs; Clay on how he’d buy his friends out of their jobs and enjoy overseas travel, after winning US Powerball; and finally Leigh revealed his version of the football manoeuvre called Vacuum Leads. After admiring Selina’s comfortable stage presence and confident delivery, Christine gave an excellent tip on leaning forward to prevent slouching to one side. Guest evaluator, Jezz, found himself in simpatico with Natalie’s passion for sales. Michael applauded Anthony’s masterful use of the stage and encouraged him to pour even more fuel on his fiery ‘call to arms’. Andrea enjoyed Michael’s creative use of the Special Occasions speech ‘Presenting an Award’ to launch the newsletter. She queried why Michael called for contributions comprising paragraphs of 42 words for Patrick’s Corner in the Winter edition of the Argonaut? (Discover the answer by reading the Summer edition now! ) Maddie offered well observed praise and suggestions of improvement for all our table topic speakers. Leigh highlighted many excellent turns of phrase and few instances of poor grammar. Preeti spotted that Carlton so likes to ‘so’ in her Um Counters report. Darrell rounded up the meeting with a comprehensive General Evaluation. Lastly, President Sarah invited comments from our guests Preeti, Jezz and Annie and thanked everyone for making our first meeting for 2016 such great fun. see also 2015-Jul_Dec Meetings Downloads
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